Review: Side Man (Ka-Tet Theatre)

Side Man

Written by Warren Leight
Directed by Richard Stockton Rand
at City Lit, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr (map)
thru Aug 20  |  tickets: $20  |   more info

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Jazz memory-play well cast, but lacks build

Ka-Tet Theatre presents

Side Man

Review by Dan Jakes

Comedian Paul F. Tompkins refers to jazz as a “genre of music that is defying you to like it.” You either get it, or you don’t. I don’t.

Ka-Tet Theatre’s uneven production about a trumpet player’s slide into irrelevancy doesn’t do quite enough to bring me into that bourbon soaked, neon-lit world, either. Where Warren Leight’s 1998 nostalgia-play is full of characters so willing to sacrifice their marriages, finances and bodies for their passion, Richard Stockton Rand’s staging falls short with lukewarm sentiment and sometimes-lethargic pacing.

“Dancing at Lughnasa”-type narrator Clifford (Dan Meisner) recounts the disintegration of his jazz-player father Gene’s (Jeremy Clark) marriage and musical career over the span of several decades, beginning around the post-WWII band heyday to the electric guitar’s brass-silencing advent to the 1980’s. From the start, Gene is emotionally unavailable to anyone but his fellow horn players (Jeffrey Gitelle, Rich Logan, Scott Allen Luke), a sad sack band-of-brothers united by a mutual love of their craft and ample time spent in the unemployment line. The camaraderie between the musicians is one aspect of Rand’s production that resonates clearly; each man is perfectly cast. Their individual backstories are relayed mostly secondhand or picked up during the group’s bull sessions–the rest are conveyed through specific, supported character choices.

For Gene, an appreciation for inspired solos only does so much to pay the bills back home, and as his wife Terry (Suzanne Miller) becomes isolated in her efforts to function as a family in the real world, desperation crumbles into depression and madness. Miller as the manic wife is underserved by the production–without enough dramatic

build to back her performance, key scenes between her and her husband play out as melodrama. There’s an upsetting scene in which boy Clifford must talk his deranged mother down from a rooftop, but even this feels like too abrasive of a plot-jump to have a full emotional impact. Also mostly convincing is a relationship-shattering argument that ends in Gene’s trumpet being hurled to the floor–Clark tempers Gene’s rage with heartbreak and disappointment.

Though the text would suggest otherwise, here, the tone changes minimally during the story’s multi-decade arc. As the primary means for conveying the story, Meisner plays it too chill to deliver a believable reason for telling us his story. His Clifford has some charisma, but as a narrator, Meisner has trouble negotiating the line between intention-based acting and casual conversing.

Rating: ★★½

Ka-Tet Theatre’s Side Man continues through August 20th at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr (map).  Tickets are $20, and can be purchased at BrownPaperTickets.com. More information at KaTetTheatre.org.

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artists

cast

Dan Meisner (Clifford), Jeremy Clark (Gene), Suzanne Miller (Terry), Kathryn Bartholomew (Patsy), Scott Allen Luke (Al), Rich Logan (Jonesy), Jeffrey Gitelle (Ziggy)

behind the scenes

Richard Stockton Rand (director), K. Hannah Friedman (stage manager), Lisa Much (props), Tracy Otwell (sets), Karen M. Thompson (lighting), Jason Knox (sound), Emily Waecker (costumes), Casey VanWormer (dramaturg), Lindsay A. Bartlett (dialect coach), Chad Kolbe (tech director), Terrence Howe, Alex Cain, Alex Marianyi, Dave Vessella (instrument consultants), Don Seybold (jazz advisor), Caitlin Boylan (production manager)